* George Parker Bidder - engineer & mathematician

George Parker Bidder

Famous Sons & Daughters No.9: George Parker Bidder

A blue plaque in Warfleet Road in Dartmouth hints at the story of a remarkable man whose computer-like mathematical brain made him a childhood celebrity and won him national admiration as Britain was transformed by the Industrial Revolution.

George Parker Bidder lived from 1806 until 1878. He was a talented engineer and worked alongside Robert Stephenson, the son of George Stephenson. But it was his youthful mathematical ability that earned him celebrity status at a very young age.

Bidder was born in Moretonhampstead on June 14th 1806, the youngest of the three sons of William and Elizabeth Bidder. William was one of a family of stonemasons and taught his sons numbers by using the face of his watch. George could count to 100 at a very young age and developed a passion for counting, using marbles, conkers or shot to work out his sums.

Soon he could calculate complicated figures in his head, and astonished his parents one night by calling out from his bed. The child could hear William and Elizabeth trying to work out how much the family pig would make when it was taken to the butchers. The little boy became frustrated at their mathematical attempts and immediately shouted the answer down the stairs.

As a young child, George would often sit in the local blacksmith’s shop and earn pocket money by performing complicated multiplication sums in his head for pennies.

When he was just seven the local schoolmaster and minister, Jacob Isaac, tested little George and confirmed his exceptional ability for sums, although he struggled with reading. By the time he was eight, the age at which Mozart wrote his first symphony, Bidder was able to calculate in his head the square root of 119,550,669,121 and come up with the correct answer of 345,761 in just 30 seconds!

His father realised that his talents could prove profitable and took the young Bidder to local fairs and shows where he would demonstrate his skills by solving sums in return for money.

So lucrative was this that William began hiring halls and travelling further and further afield, charging admission for audiences to be entertained by the young mathematical genius. There are records of shows in Cheltenham, Tewkesbury, Worcester, Birmingham, Dudley, Oxford, Cambridge, Norwich, Great Yarmouth, and London – and in 1816 he was invited to perform in front of Queen Charlotte, said to be “astounded” by his abilities.

William was persuaded to allow George to attend a school at Camberwell but he only remained there for one year, before his father took him off on tour once again.

It proved fruitful for Bidder, for while performing in Edinburgh in 1819 he was spotted by a group of mathematicians, among them Sir Henry Jardine. Sir Henry was solicitor for taxes in Scotland and King’s remembrancer in Exchequer for Scotland. He was also a member of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, and he offered Bidder a year of private tuition which was to be followed by studies at Edinburgh University. He studied mathematics and natural philosophy and made many friends including Robert Stephenson. Finally he managed to shake off his child prodigy status and simply became another student.

When he left university, Bidder went to work for the Ordnance Survey and stayed in Scotland for the next five years. In 1824 he moved down to Cardiff and then to London to undertake a number of surveys.

Bidder eventually went into civil engineering, working alongside Henry Palmer, a former assistant of Thomas Telford. Their first major project was a survey of the London Docks.

In 1834 he transferred his skills to the new world of railways where he worked alongside his old university friend, Robert Stephenson, on the Stockton and Darlington, and London and Birmingham Railways. The pair worked on railway projects in Norway, Denmark, and Switzerland, as well as in Britain, and helped George Stephenson with his political work, helping to develop the rail network.

Bidder’s reputation grew along with his fortune. He invested in various companies such as the Electrical Telegraph Company, the Torbay and Dart Paint Company, the Buckland Slate Quarry, a number of Welsh coal mines and a slate quarry. He also never forgot the help given by Sir Henry Jardine and established a scholarship for a student of limited means at Edinburgh University.

But Bidder always loved Devon and by the mid 1800s he took every opportunity to spend time in the county where he was born. A love of sailing brought him to Dartmouth where he bought his own private yacht. In 1868 he was asked to stand for the town council, but declined due to his commitments in London. However he used his engineering expertise to help improve the town’s drainage and water supply.

Bidder’s engineering expertise went beyond railways and surveys. He attended the weekly meetings of the Institution of Civil Engineers, of which he was elected president in 1860. He was one of the first to recognize the value of the electric telegraph and was one of the founders of the Electric Telegraph Company, which enabled the general public to enjoy the benefits of telegraphic communication. He worked in hydraulic engineering and was the designer of the Victoria Docks in London. The Government frequently sought his advice on points both of naval and military engineering.

Bidder regularly stayed at a house in Warfleet Road and decided to move back to Devon permanently. In 1877 he bought Stoke House in Stoke Fleming to fulfil his dream, but it was during a visit to Dartmouth that George Parker Bidder died on September 28th 1878, before he had made his longed-for move.

He was survived by his wife Georgina (nee Harby), daughters Bertha, Constance and Edyth, and his son, also George Parker Bidder (1836-1896), who inherited much of his father’s calculating power. He was a successful parliamentary counsel and an authority on cryptography. His grandson, again named George Parker Bidder, became a marine biologist and president of the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom.